Sources of party system institutionalization in new democracies: Lessons from East Central Europe

Building on Casal Bértoa and Mair´s (2010) work on the institutionalization of post-communist party systems and as a response to their uneasiness with the failure of the party politics literature to determine what causes party system institutionalization in the first place, this paper addresses the following question: what are the sources of party system institutionalization in post-communist East Central Europe? In particular, what is it that explains the institutionalization of the Hungarian and Czech party systems in clear contrast to those of Slovakia and Poland, which are considered weak and under-institutionalized, respectively?